A tank or similar vessel is often employed at a factory, construction site, warehouse, and the like, to receive, store, and distribute a product. These tanks are adapted to accommodate a variety of different products or materials such as, for example, gasoline, propane, fertilizer, chemicals, fuels, waste and the like. The tanks that hold these products are continually and frequently drained of, and replenished with, the product both during and outside of normal business hours. The tanks are also subject to leaks of the product, theft of the product, overfills and other circumstances where the level of the product changes dramatically in a short amount of time.
Unfortunately, the tanks described above can often be located in remote areas, may not be closely watched by owners and employees, and the like. Therefore, the tanks can experience sudden, unexpected and/or rapid changes in the amount or level of product in the tank without the large loss or increase of product being discovered for quite some time either based on monitor reporting schedule or based on when users are reviewing the monitored information on the system. In these situations, if the tank is drained of product due to excessive usage or a leak, or is overfilled (e.g. in the case of waste storage) work stoppages can result. Such a excessive product usage or overfills can therefore result in a pecuniary loss beyond simply the loss of the product itself.
While constant reporting of parameters pertaining to such tanks would be ideal, such is often not practical or commercially feasible. For example, in cellular and satellite metering technology, each set of data that is sent has a cost. Since the typical approach is to read monitor data periodically and then send a report, a data report can be sent quite often (e.g., once an hour), which is expensive, or can be sent infrequently (e.g., once a day), which provides delayed and very limited knowledge about what has happened with monitored parameters. When battery-powered devices are used to monitor tank parameters, the cost noted above is significantly higher. For instance, each packet of data sent uses a portion of battery life and the expense involved in battery replacement in remote locations can be very high.
Thus, a system that can monitor a product level in a tank and generate an alarm signal if the level of the tank excessively rises or falls would be desirable. Moreover, a method of monitoring a product level in a tank and generating an alarm signal would also be desirable. The invention provides such a system and method. These and other advantages of the invention, as well as additional inventive features, will be apparent from the description of the invention provided herein.